Stormin' Mormons

What happens when you grease a slippery slope with a little too much KY Jelly? Mormons ransacking your house and sifting through your panty drawer.

This ad for "No" on California's Prop 8 gay marriage ban shows the ugly (overexaggerated) side of what happens when you invite those dudes wearing ties and bike helmets into your home.

By the way, how come ties with bike helmets never caught on in the business world? It can't be long before businessmen begin sporting that "I'm safe, but also professional" look around the office.

Medi-Scare

These depressing webisodes from Divided We Fail remind us how crappy our lives are without health insurance. I'm not sure what the call to action is, but they do a great job of convincing immigrants to lose hope in America.

You want a toe?

Today I bring you a scarevertising classic: The toe tag. As Walter from The Big Lebowski once said, "You want a toe!? I'll get you toe!" But I'll get you a toe by 3 o' clock this afternoon...with a toe tag. That's because "toe tagvertising" is one of the most overused visuals in the business. I know I say that about everything, but seriously, just Google "toe tag" and scan the images yourself. It'll toe your mind. (Sorry for that.)














If you look closely here, you'll notice they've forced a fictitious "overweight" yes/no field onto the toe tag. What a cruel world. Even when you're dead, people still label you as "fat".

Germ Warfare

FACT: Big cartoony germs must scare the hell out of people, because they're used over and over again in household cleaning ads. Lysol's brilliant solution to getting rid of the millions of germs spreading throughout your house is to spray every toilet, doorknob, pen, pencil, and anything that's ever been touched. What they don't tell you could save a hours a day and loads of money by simply washing your hands after you go to the bathroom...you know, like a normal person. But if you want to live like Howard Hughes in his final years, douche your home with Lysol every 15 minutes.

Man boobs

If you drink like a man, you might end up looking like...a clown? As you can see here, it really depends on your taste in makeup. The good news is drinkers usually stick together. So if you drink like a man and look like a man, you'll probably have no problem finding an intoxicated man who won't mind bringing home a chick that looks like a man...or maybe even a clown if you're really lucky.

That's some tasty oil

Word plays can be misleading. In this case, 16 million gallons of oil were "consumed" to make plastic bottles. Ultimately, this ad claims when you're drinking bottled water, you're actually drinking oil. Even though this is a huge stretch of the imagination, don't confuse this message with Dasani water which only tastes like crude oil.

Missing Links

Did you know smoking causes your friends to grow sausage-link arms?
Well, it does...according to the latest campaign from the New Mexico Department of Health. To confuse consumers even more, they've also created a website. This is about as close to "false advertising" as you can get in this business. Well done guys.



The real lesson learned here is if you smoke too much while creating an advertisement, bad things really do happen. And clients have to pay for them.

Ratting Out NYC

Washington DC recently launched a campaign claiming that NYC has rats the size of house cats because they aren't strict about food and drinks in the subway. New York subway tunnels might have a lot of rats, but I've never heard of anyone say they've seen a rat inside an actual subway car (or even seen a rat the size of a house cat). I would imagine food on the subways is a small contributor to the rat problem. That's an awfully slippery slope DC.

A True Scarevertising Agency

Want to create your own scary campaign? I found this agency called Scare Factory Advertising. Honestly I don't know what they actually do for sure, but it made me laugh and seemed to fit in with this blog. I'm definitely not recommending them by any means.

Foul Uni-Ball